MASS HANDLING OF WATERMELON MICROCUTTINGS

Modifications were made in the configurations of the unitizing, nonsel ective wire cutters used by Alper et al. (1992) for mass cuttings of S tage II Citrullus lanatus cv. Charlee (watermelon) plant tissue cultur es to further enhance productivity. Mounting the cutter in an inverted position over the receiving vessel eliminated time required for filli ng. This cut-and-dump technique became 4.8 times more productive for t he total transfer process than the conventional scalpel and forceps te chnique when both time and yield of cut segments with visible buds wer e considered. A concept for growing fewer, larger tissue clusters per vessel in mini-trays with orienting cells and cutting with correspondi ngly sized oriented cell wire cutters yielded as much tissue fresh wei ght as conventional agar vessels and afforded the potential to reduce time required for the removal job function with the cut-and-dump techn ique.